Undeserving Love

Tonight I will be who I am. The woman with the dark red lipstick, face-beat makeup, and perfume that whispers, “Take me, please.”

The woman in my oval mirror looks back at me as she adjusts her beautiful cream-colored pearls worn four layers down her neck into the curve where her breasts divide. With her ears adorned with large hoop earrings that barely caress the tips of her shoulders, she looks back at me as though mocking me publicly with a question I cannot answer.

The wall is thin. I can hear my children breathing heavily in the room next to me. Some nights, the youngest of the three somehow senses when mummy walks past his room. Some nights, he wakes up too. Hopefully, not tonight.